But it seriously happened. There I was, walking down the science hall, the part where there are no lockers and that whole group of them is always hanging out. And he was with a couple of guys from the team. I think there might have even been a few girls there. Anyway, the Captain looked GORGEOUS, as usual. That hair and those eyes. He looks just like Rob Lowe. Just like him. Actually, he looks better than him. The Captain is the most perfect-looking boy I have ever seen. And let’s face it, I’ve seen my share of boys.
Plus, he’s so smart. I never would have thought that smart could be so hot, but it TOTALLY is. I’ve never talked to him myself. But when he recited the Gettysburg Address from memory at the Presidents’ Day assembly a couple years ago—Jesus! Totally masturbated thinking about it later. (Sorry, Jesus, for writing that so close to your name, but it’s true.)
So there I was, walking down the hall, and the Captain and I do that thing we’ve been doing for a while now where we stare and stare at each other in the middle of a crowd like it’s just the two of us. The thing that totally makes me feel like all I want to do is give him a BJ in the bathroom.
But I don’t want to do that, not this time. This time I’m going to try for something else. Something like other girls have. Who says I can’t have a regular boyfriend?
Anyway, this time, instead of looking away when I got close like he usually does, the Captain raised a hand in a kind of wave. And he said it: Hi. Out loud. I thought Tex’s girlfriend was going to barf on her shoes.
Sandy
In the end, it was the pain in Sandy’s thighs that helped the most. The harder she pedaled, the more her legs ached, the less she thought about anything—Jenna, Hannah, what had happened the last time she’d been out on the bike. That sick feeling of her body flying one way and the bike flying the other, like two halves of an exploding bomb. Or the vicious-ass burn of the concrete ripping a long strip of skin from her forearm.
For two hours, Sandy rode everywhere in town she thought Jenna might be: Sommerfield’s (the only bar other than Blondie’s that Jenna could stand), past the park up on Stanton Street where Jenna had had at least one hookup (the details of which she’d seen fit, as usual, to share with Sandy), and that shitty dump on Taylor Ave. where Jenna bought pot sometimes. There was no sign of Jenna or her car anywhere. Sandy was panting, her throat on fire, by the time she turned in to the parking lot of Blondie’s, where Jenna worked.
Blondie’s was the least fancy place in the fanciest part of downtown Ridgedale. It had a faded green awning and frosted glass windows. Inside wasn’t much better, with stained carpeting, cracked leather benches, and St. Patrick’s Day decorations up year-round. The bartenders were as old-school as the decor. Monte, with his big belly and tight white crew cut, had owned the place for thirty years. He worked there most nights with his son Dominic, a thinner, younger version of himself. Both Monte and Dominic were big, sweet guys, the kind Sandy wished Jenna would fall for. But they’d always treated Jenna way too nice to be the least bit interesting to her.
For decades, Blondie’s had been a favorite of blue-collar locals, people just like Jenna. But in the past few months, the bar had gotten popular with kids from Ridgedale University. Some campus blog had called the usual student hangout, Truth—a bar with a small dance floor, oversize chaises, and a “mixologist,” whatever the hell that was—“cheesy poser bullshit.” After that, the university kids wanted someplace “real” to get loaded. And Blondie’s was it.
“You know what one of those kids said to me tonight?” Jenna had told Sandy as they were driving home one night after Jenna’s shift bartending and Sandy’s waitressing at Winchester’s Pub—avoiding the bike for the past week had meant getting rides from Jenna. “That Blondie’s is ironic. What the hell does that mean?”
“That they’re dicks,” Sandy had said, slipping her shoes off in the passenger seat. Her feet always ached so much at the end of her shifts that she could feel them pulsing.
“Ha, that’s funny.” Jenna had laughed hard, smacking the steering wheel. “You’re right, baby. They are dicks. Every last one of them.”
Sandy tucked her bike into the sliver of an alleyway next to Blondie’s. Her phone chirped as she headed up the steps. Jenna, it had to be. Pulling it out by the skin of her teeth at the eleventh hour, like she always did.
Are you okay? I’m worried.
Hannah, not Jenna. Jesus. Sandy took a deep breath and blew it out hard. But she couldn’t lose it on this girl, no matter how bad she wanted to.
I’m fine, Sandy typed, her fingers banging hard against her phone. I promise.
Are you sure?
The texts were making the whole thing worse. They might have been the worst part of the entire situation. Actually, no, they weren’t. They were bad, but they weren’t the worst part. Not by a fucking long shot.
The first time the two of them had met to study, Hannah had picked the Black Cat.
Sandy got there ten minutes late and totally out of breath. She’d had to haul ass on her bike to make up the twenty minutes she’d spent sitting around thinking she might not go meet Hannah after all. That she might bag the whole GED thing, honors or not. But then she’d remembered how Rhea had looked at her: that hope. No one had ever looked at Sandy that way. Like they had expectations.
She spotted a girl she thought might be Hannah, sitting there in the window with books spread out in front of her. She was tall and real pretty, with shiny shoulder-length brown hair and bright blue eyes. Her long legs were folded kind of awkwardly under the little table, and she was wearing an oversize Yale hoodie. She was smiling a little, too, like she was enjoying some kind of funny private joke.
“Sandy?” Hannah had asked, standing as she made her way over. “Are you okay?”